After all, I doubt that Apple is trying to get rid of the userbase of corporate departments that use OSX Server and technologies like the group print spooler and the Quicktime streaming server are already developed, coded, and released -- so why not roll them back in?
Um, because they perceive that spending those resources on something else will have a higher return?
What resources would it require, really? The features IT admins seem to be lamenting (at least as noted in TFA) -- QuickTime streaming, the print spooler, NT4-style login server -- are already developed. It would seem to me to be very un-resource-intensive to roll those already-developed features into a OSX Lion server that is not exactly a big change in architecture from the last version.
Even if someone were to make such service they would immediately get huge backslash for the need of DRM (demanded by copyright owners). Yes, continue to use Linux, I do too. But if you are not willing to come even a little bit forward (like, accepting DRM or closed binaries) don't cry about it when companies don't want to support it.
Whether it's part of the base Windows distribution or not, a user will end up installing/updating Silverlight or Flash before watching Netflix, Hulu, or youtube.
The community of *nix users so ideologically averse to proprietary binaries and DRM is very small. I'm sure that any *nix user that wants to use Netflix watch-it-now would set-aside his desire for a fully open-source desktop and install whatever browser plug-ins to get it to work. After all, there are a lot of *nix users out there using proprietary video drivers from nVidia. There's just no real reason not to.
Earlier in the year, Apple released a new version of it's popular professional video editing software, Final Cut Pro X. There was much belly aching by the user community and in the media about missing features. Indeed, the comments from professional users are eerily similar to those comments of IT admins about Lion Server -- basically that it's being dumbed down for the consumer market.
Just a few weeks ago, Apple updated the FAQ for this software, with CNet quoting the following:
"Final Cut Pro X is a breakthrough in nonlinear video editing. The application has impressed many pro editors, and it has also generated a lot of discussion in the pro video community," the FAQ reads. "We know people have questions about the new features in Final Cut Pro X and how it compares with previous versions of Final Cut Pro. Here are the answers to the most common questions we've heard."
In the FAQ, which details specifics about importing, editing, media management, export and purchase, Apple's tried to make one thing clear: some of the missing features will return with future software updates.
Indeed, Apple may be as inclined due to this backlash to reverse itself with OSX Lion as it was with Final Cut Pro. It's entirely reasonable to project that missing server features may make their return to the Sever Admin panel or as stand-alone add-ons.
After all, I doubt that Apple is trying to get rid of the userbase of corporate departments that use OSX Server and technologies like the group print spooler and the Quicktime streaming server are already developed, coded, and released -- so why not roll them back in?
"Once you locate and download the Server Admin tool, experienced Mac OS X Server administrators will notice it's a much thinner tool than it used to be. Roughly half the services that used to be there are missing. Most user-based services, such as file sharing, calendaring, and Web services, have been moved to the simple Server application. Others, such as QuickTime Streaming Server, have been completely removed."
I wish you had quoted a bit more, because it leads the reader to conclude that if the one service removed that TFA mentions is quick time streaming server, then big f'ing deal. Here's a little more from TFA:
One of the more significant feature rollbacks comes in reduced support for Windows clients. For years, Mac OS X Server's LDAP-based Open Directory had the ability to function as a primary domain controller (PDC) to support Windows clients. The PDC provided Windows clients with single sign-on authentication, and for those who work on both platforms, it gave users access to the same accounts and server-based home folders from their Windows PCs as well as their Macs. In Lion Server, Windows clients still have access to file sharing, but are now second-class clients.
Another service that Apple deleted is the print server of previous Mac OS X Server builds. Lion Server contains only the same ability to share printers found in every copy of Mac OS X client for the past five years: the open source Common Unix Printing System (CUPS), which gives Macs the ability to host shared print queues and simple pools of printers but lacks the enterprise features that previous print servers had. For example, Lion Server's CUPS cannot prioritize printers in the pool or set quotas for individual users or printers. And you can't publish printers to Open Directory.
The print server would seem to be one of the more important removals in functionality.
I would say that the wide-adoption of corporate/small-business e-mail systems in the mid-late 90s killed the floppy disk. Up until then, legal assistants, secretaries, financial analysts, and other workers on the lower-rungs would truck a floppy disk from desk to desk to collaborate with colleagues, present work to the boss, or deliver documents to clients. With e-mail, the small files that could go on floppy disks could more easily be sent more easily with even the slower LAN and shared-internet connections.
Yeah -- was just looking for a comment from someone else on this. Indeed, I couldn't find any documentation on the linux.com's website on this video
So how exactly do we know that Microsoft sent this, other than TFA saying:
Among the well-wishers that have made submissions is one that would not necessarily be expected: Microsoft has posted an animated video congratulating the free operating system.
How this "h-online" website found that Microsoft posted the video is unknown.
The last thing you want to do is publicly identify those with security clearance. Those with clearances should blend in, not stick out -- being allowed to the front of a line of irritable un-screened passengers would open too many questions of "Who's this guy?"
Who is this Greg Mahlknecht? He's just a random guy doing this as a hobby, which means he has no particular propreitar/secret inside information from AT&T or some other. It would be trivially easy to anyone that has the resources to tap a underwater comms line to just build this map from the same source data, summarized as follows in TFA:
Mahlknecht has drawn his data from a variety of sources. “Wikipedia has a ‘submarine communications cables’ category and I used this as a starting point before going to each cable’s homepage and gathering alternative information."
Another note is that this data is very general. It's generally straight lines from landing to landing. You couldn't take this map or the KML data he's pulled together, send a submarine down straight from some point on the map and be able to spot the cable. It's going to take some work.
Wow; what a post. Love it when someone comes out and says something like "nonsense." Offensive and non-persuasive, bro. A few things:
1) You note the energy to get mass to low earth orbit; what about Mars? I made no assertions about the absense of enough energy to get payloads to low earth orbit.
2) How do you know how much energy is in a hurricane? We cite sources here on slashdot.
3) I didn't say 20 shuttle sized payloads. I said 20 years-worth of missions.
It was a good article, but Cmdrtaco didn't do himself any favors with this bad start:
My flight was uneventful. Despite spending more time getting my luggage and rental car in Orlando than I actually spent FLYING from Detroit, I checked into an Orlando hotel with enough time to get a few hours sleep before my early morning drive to the Kennedy Space Center. Traffic wasn't bad at all with like 30 hours to go.
We're going to pay the Russians to put our guys in space now. And when we do finally get back up there on our own, it won't be the same it'll be just a capsule.
So what if it is a capsule. There is not enough energy on the planet available to do more than 20 years worth of missions sending space-shuttle sized payloads to Mars, if it is even technically possible or fiscally justifable.
So what if it is a capsule? At least it will break new ground in manned space flight -- the things that aren't known about low-earth orbit, and there are many, can be better explored with unmanned sensors and the ISS than the space shuttle.
The entire point of the space shuttle was to cheaply get payload up to low-earth orbit from whence the payload would continueonit'sway. Well, that never happened. It was supposed to be $7 million a mission. It's closer to a 1.5 billion per mission.
The space shuttle was best used to get the ISS to orbit and now it's served it's time. From here on out, I'm fine with just capsules -- not just fine, really, but more excited about manned space flight than I ever have been.
That said, it's apparent that the government is being an asshat about the situation. What they should have done is graciously thanked Anderson for saving the rocks, offered to generously reimburse him for his time as steward of the rocks...
The government is not a typical business that can do the obvious thing of paying someone off to avoid the hassle of legal battles, particularly when the issue is something that is literally priceless.
First of all, who decides how much this is worth? In other words, how can the government ensure that it's taxpayers will be satisfied that is hasn't overpaid for this rock?
China now produces over 97% of the world's rare earth supply, mostly in Inner Mongolia, even though it has only 37% of proven reserves.
There are two things going on here:
China's paucity of environmental considerations in resource extraction
Cheapness of transport (electronics factories using rare earths are closer to Inner Mongolia than mines in South America)
High mining know-how of Chinese
High availability of cheap chinese labor
On #1 -- Indeed mining for rare earths in the US is expensive because of workplace and environmental health regulations, but it can be had for some price. If China restricts supply, price will rise and US mines can reopen while meeting rigorous US standards for environmental sustainability of rare-earth mining operations.
On #2 -- if China wants to restrict supply, that's fine -- but they're own factories are probably close to the world's largest users of rare earths for electronics. So it's not as if we won't be able to get our iPods.
Yeah -- prove to me that Wal Mart store managers perform sales tax analysis and send the check to the state. I highly doubt that Bentonville hasn't centralized that work in Bentonville.
Last I checked, Wal-Mart, Kroger, Home Depot and a host of other retailers operate in 30+ states and manage to be able to handle 30 different exemptions policies, 30 different tax codes, and 30 different use tax schedules. Amazon can't do that? Really?
Yeah, I don't get what this is all about. I thought that when he posted about Lucasfilm last week that he was just doing it on a lark -- I'm pretty shocked to see that this is a regular, erm, feature published here.
Indeed, I don't see the point of these posts from a content generation perspective at all -- I mean, clearly there are 67 comments here so far, so people are reading it. But I bet there are better things to occupy the space than this...
Slashdot Mirror
After all, I doubt that Apple is trying to get rid of the userbase of corporate departments that use OSX Server and technologies like the group print spooler and the Quicktime streaming server are already developed, coded, and released -- so why not roll them back in?
Um, because they perceive that spending those resources on something else will have a higher return?
What resources would it require, really? The features IT admins seem to be lamenting (at least as noted in TFA) -- QuickTime streaming, the print spooler, NT4-style login server -- are already developed. It would seem to me to be very un-resource-intensive to roll those already-developed features into a OSX Lion server that is not exactly a big change in architecture from the last version.
Even if someone were to make such service they would immediately get huge backslash for the need of DRM (demanded by copyright owners). Yes, continue to use Linux, I do too. But if you are not willing to come even a little bit forward (like, accepting DRM or closed binaries) don't cry about it when companies don't want to support it.
Whether it's part of the base Windows distribution or not, a user will end up installing/updating Silverlight or Flash before watching Netflix, Hulu, or youtube.
The community of *nix users so ideologically averse to proprietary binaries and DRM is very small. I'm sure that any *nix user that wants to use Netflix watch-it-now would set-aside his desire for a fully open-source desktop and install whatever browser plug-ins to get it to work. After all, there are a lot of *nix users out there using proprietary video drivers from nVidia. There's just no real reason not to.
Earlier in the year, Apple released a new version of it's popular professional video editing software, Final Cut Pro X. There was much belly aching by the user community and in the media about missing features. Indeed, the comments from professional users are eerily similar to those comments of IT admins about Lion Server -- basically that it's being dumbed down for the consumer market.
Just a few weeks ago, Apple updated the FAQ for this software, with CNet quoting the following:
"Final Cut Pro X is a breakthrough in nonlinear video editing. The application has impressed many pro editors, and it has also generated a lot of discussion in the pro video community," the FAQ reads. "We know people have questions about the new features in Final Cut Pro X and how it compares with previous versions of Final Cut Pro. Here are the answers to the most common questions we've heard."
In the FAQ, which details specifics about importing, editing, media management, export and purchase, Apple's tried to make one thing clear: some of the missing features will return with future software updates.
Indeed, Apple may be as inclined due to this backlash to reverse itself with OSX Lion as it was with Final Cut Pro. It's entirely reasonable to project that missing server features may make their return to the Sever Admin panel or as stand-alone add-ons.
After all, I doubt that Apple is trying to get rid of the userbase of corporate departments that use OSX Server and technologies like the group print spooler and the Quicktime streaming server are already developed, coded, and released -- so why not roll them back in?
"Once you locate and download the Server Admin tool, experienced Mac OS X Server administrators will notice it's a much thinner tool than it used to be. Roughly half the services that used to be there are missing. Most user-based services, such as file sharing, calendaring, and Web services, have been moved to the simple Server application. Others, such as QuickTime Streaming Server, have been completely removed."
I wish you had quoted a bit more, because it leads the reader to conclude that if the one service removed that TFA mentions is quick time streaming server, then big f'ing deal. Here's a little more from TFA:
One of the more significant feature rollbacks comes in reduced support for Windows clients. For years, Mac OS X Server's LDAP-based Open Directory had the ability to function as a primary domain controller (PDC) to support Windows clients. The PDC provided Windows clients with single sign-on authentication, and for those who work on both platforms, it gave users access to the same accounts and server-based home folders from their Windows PCs as well as their Macs. In Lion Server, Windows clients still have access to file sharing, but are now second-class clients.
Another service that Apple deleted is the print server of previous Mac OS X Server builds. Lion Server contains only the same ability to share printers found in every copy of Mac OS X client for the past five years: the open source Common Unix Printing System (CUPS), which gives Macs the ability to host shared print queues and simple pools of printers but lacks the enterprise features that previous print servers had. For example, Lion Server's CUPS cannot prioritize printers in the pool or set quotas for individual users or printers. And you can't publish printers to Open Directory.
The print server would seem to be one of the more important removals in functionality.
I would say that the wide-adoption of corporate/small-business e-mail systems in the mid-late 90s killed the floppy disk. Up until then, legal assistants, secretaries, financial analysts, and other workers on the lower-rungs would truck a floppy disk from desk to desk to collaborate with colleagues, present work to the boss, or deliver documents to clients. With e-mail, the small files that could go on floppy disks could more easily be sent more easily with even the slower LAN and shared-internet connections.
Yeah -- was just looking for a comment from someone else on this. Indeed, I couldn't find any documentation on the linux.com's website on this video
So how exactly do we know that Microsoft sent this, other than TFA saying:
Among the well-wishers that have made submissions is one that would not necessarily be expected: Microsoft has posted an animated video congratulating the free operating system.
How this "h-online" website found that Microsoft posted the video is unknown.
you know, like if you had a bunch of uranium gas centrifuges running.
I may be dense, but just out of curiosity -- how did you know in 1993 that the US does not use centrifuges to separate uranium?
The last thing you want to do is publicly identify those with security clearance. Those with clearances should blend in, not stick out -- being allowed to the front of a line of irritable un-screened passengers would open too many questions of "Who's this guy?"
here is..."ludicrous speed".
Who is this Greg Mahlknecht? He's just a random guy doing this as a hobby, which means he has no particular propreitar/secret inside information from AT&T or some other. It would be trivially easy to anyone that has the resources to tap a underwater comms line to just build this map from the same source data, summarized as follows in TFA:
Mahlknecht has drawn his data from a variety of sources. “Wikipedia has a ‘submarine communications cables’ category and I used this as a starting point before going to each cable’s homepage and gathering alternative information."
Another note is that this data is very general. It's generally straight lines from landing to landing. You couldn't take this map or the KML data he's pulled together, send a submarine down straight from some point on the map and be able to spot the cable. It's going to take some work.
0. The plane would fly regardless of whether this one single guy bought a ticket or not.
Wow; what a post. Love it when someone comes out and says something like "nonsense." Offensive and non-persuasive, bro. A few things:
1) You note the energy to get mass to low earth orbit; what about Mars? I made no assertions about the absense of enough energy to get payloads to low earth orbit.
2) How do you know how much energy is in a hurricane? We cite sources here on slashdot.
3) I didn't say 20 shuttle sized payloads. I said 20 years-worth of missions.
It was a good article, but Cmdrtaco didn't do himself any favors with this bad start:
My flight was uneventful. Despite spending more time getting my luggage and rental car in Orlando than I actually spent FLYING from Detroit, I checked into an Orlando hotel with enough time to get a few hours sleep before my early morning drive to the Kennedy Space Center. Traffic wasn't bad at all with like 30 hours to go.
We're going to pay the Russians to put our guys in space now. And when we do finally get back up there on our own, it won't be the same it'll be just a capsule.
So what if it is a capsule. There is not enough energy on the planet available to do more than 20 years worth of missions sending space-shuttle sized payloads to Mars, if it is even technically possible or fiscally justifable.
So what if it is a capsule? At least it will break new ground in manned space flight -- the things that aren't known about low-earth orbit, and there are many, can be better explored with unmanned sensors and the ISS than the space shuttle.
The entire point of the space shuttle was to cheaply get payload up to low-earth orbit from whence the payload would continue on it's way. Well, that never happened. It was supposed to be $7 million a mission. It's closer to a 1.5 billion per mission.
The space shuttle was best used to get the ISS to orbit and now it's served it's time. From here on out, I'm fine with just capsules -- not just fine, really, but more excited about manned space flight than I ever have been.
That said, it's apparent that the government is being an asshat about the situation. What they should have done is graciously thanked Anderson for saving the rocks, offered to generously reimburse him for his time as steward of the rocks...
The government is not a typical business that can do the obvious thing of paying someone off to avoid the hassle of legal battles, particularly when the issue is something that is literally priceless.
First of all, who decides how much this is worth? In other words, how can the government ensure that it's taxpayers will be satisfied that is hasn't overpaid for this rock?
China does not by any means have a lock on rare earth production, with wikipedia reporting the following:
China now produces over 97% of the world's rare earth supply, mostly in Inner Mongolia, even though it has only 37% of proven reserves.
There are two things going on here:
On #1 -- Indeed mining for rare earths in the US is expensive because of workplace and environmental health regulations, but it can be had for some price. If China restricts supply, price will rise and US mines can reopen while meeting rigorous US standards for environmental sustainability of rare-earth mining operations.
On #2 -- if China wants to restrict supply, that's fine -- but they're own factories are probably close to the world's largest users of rare earths for electronics. So it's not as if we won't be able to get our iPods.
Yeah -- prove to me that Wal Mart store managers perform sales tax analysis and send the check to the state. I highly doubt that Bentonville hasn't centralized that work in Bentonville.
Last I checked, Wal-Mart, Kroger, Home Depot and a host of other retailers operate in 30+ states and manage to be able to handle 30 different exemptions policies, 30 different tax codes, and 30 different use tax schedules. Amazon can't do that? Really?
You have a link, right?
Where did you hear that exactly?
Oh -- I just noticed that too. Was there some announcement about that?
...actually been on the New York Subway? See it's fair information.
There's no such thing as "paying for a ticket for train X for Y time on Z Day"
Yeah, I don't get what this is all about. I thought that when he posted about Lucasfilm last week that he was just doing it on a lark -- I'm pretty shocked to see that this is a regular, erm, feature published here.
Indeed, I don't see the point of these posts from a content generation perspective at all -- I mean, clearly there are 67 comments here so far, so people are reading it. But I bet there are better things to occupy the space than this...
High comedy, my friend. Well done.
Are you guys up at March? Always wondered where AFN came from...